


Someone In Heaven To Blame

by Froggiespit



Category: Critical Role (Web Series), Critical Role Campaign Two
Genre: Dungeons and Dragons, Found Family, Gore/injury, Hurt/Comfort, Injury, Religious Conflict, Things Do not Go Well, but only sort of!! He just feels lost, cow man cries :(, critical role hurts me, fjorclay, polynein (?), someone give caduceus a hug please holy fuck
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-06
Updated: 2020-02-06
Packaged: 2021-02-27 19:54:39
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,851
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22581337
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Froggiespit/pseuds/Froggiespit
Summary: Caduceus discovers that bottling feelings only works for so long. Eventually that pressure becomes too much and the bottle shatters. Fjord and Jester help pick up the pieces.
Relationships: Caduceus Clay/Fjord
Comments: 21
Kudos: 279





	Someone In Heaven To Blame

**Author's Note:**

> Hey !! So here’s a short little blurb I wrote a week or so ago and never got around to posting with how hectic my college/work schedule is! 
> 
> This work is graphic in some depictions of blood/injury descriptions. Please read with care!

Caduceus is no stranger to hurt. To grief. To loss. In fact, it’s been such a fundamental part of his existence that he cannot bear to think there is a world free of it. 

He’s used to placing his hand over a grieving widow’s, stroking a soft thumb over her knuckles and ensuring that he and his family will do the best they can by her. 

He’s used to placing a steaming cup of tea in front of a new orphan, smoothing her bangs back with his hand and calling her brave. 

He’s used to holding a father who’d lost his son only days before, asking him to come back to the temple once more to talk, desperately trying to make him feel less alone. 

If he’s so used to handling it, then why does it  _ hurt _ ? 

Why does a hollow cold flush through his veins and cradle his skull? Why do his hands shake when he reaches out to heal? Why isn’t he  _ better _ at it? 

He should be  _ better _ at it. His friends deserve better.

Fjord had bled so much Caduceus was practically slipping in it, the viscous fluid threatening to stick to his knees under him when it soaks through his pants. The soft fur on the back of his hands is matted down clear to his elbows, dry and cracking when he goes to cough into his bicep. He certainly isn’t...squeamish when it comes to death and blood, but gods is it different when it’s your friend’s blood. 

Jester had nearly died, hitting her head so hard Caduceus was sure he could see a sliver of skull where she’d impacted with a column earlier. She was still standing, shaking and screaming with rage he was sure was a coping mechanism on her body’s part. 

The demon in front of her was cleaved clear down the middle in a flash of sugary pink and Jester gave the most triumphant laugh he's ever heard.

She’d collapsed after that, a heap of crumpled blue and crimson and Caduceus drug himself over to her side, his own legs refusing to hold his weight at the moment. 

He held his palm against the weeping gash across her scalp and willed it shut, peeling an eye open to examine her pupils. It wasn’t good, but she wasn’t going to die. She needed to sleep. They all needed to sleep, and he was going to have to keep an eye on them. 

Was caduceus hurt? Not nearly as hurt as the others—so it doesn’t really matter does it? He groans a little when he ghosts his fingertips over his ankle, gritting his teeth through a sharp inhale as he tries to heal it back to a usable condition. He isn’t even sure when it had shattered like that, he just knew the steadily building grind of pain became too much and he had no choice but to abandon walking altogether. His bad knee is throbbing deep against his bones and he casts a simple healing on himself, not daring to take more than needed when others were so obviously injured. 

Caleb was so quiet Caduceus had hardly known whether or not he was dead or alive until he laid eyes on him and the weeping crimson over his lips. He’s holding his hands clasped over his nose, trying to pinch it to stop the flow, but gods he’s shaking too much to hold anything under pressure. Caduceus inches Caleb’s hands from his face slowly, pressing against the broken bones of his nose to hold them 

steady. It’s a wonder there’s even a structure there with how they slide under his thumb and forefinger. Caleb's breathing heavily, probably trying to keep himself conscious, and Caduceus coos to him in an attempt to make things somewhat more manageable. Nott pets his hair, clearly upset by seeing her boy hurt.

“I won’t need to reset it, it’s just going to need a little help healing. Alright? Will you let me?” His voice is a hoarse whisper, not wanting any of the others to stir from where he’d dragged them all into a corner to rest. 

Caleb's eyes are blackened, shined and swollen around the burst red of his left sclera. He whines in pain but doesn’t let out any indication that caduceus shouldn’t just get it over with. He’s quick about it at least, pressing hard enough for Caleb’s knee to jump and tears to well against his lashes, trying to force what healing he has left into it. Apparently, it does the trick, the skin just slightly bruised when he pulls away. 

He’s about to wipe some of the tears away when he realizes how caked his own hands are, pulling them back to his chest carefully. Caleb's asleep before he can count to ten, chest rising and falling as if it hadn’t nearly stopped earlier. It’s not worth moving him. Nott smiles softly.

“Take care of them."

There’s a drawn groan to his left and he looks over his shoulder quickly, reflexively, nearly growling aloud. There’s a cool rush of panic from his veins when he realizes it’s just Fjord, that he’s stirring. Cad scoots himself over to where he lies beside an unconscious Jester, tail wrapping limply around Yasha’s wrist. 

Fjords eyes are fluttering desperately, rolling around in his head and he’s trying to sit up, hissing at the pain across his previously broken back. Caduceus plants a palm on his chest and pushes him back to the ground, brushing sweaty hair from against his bloody forehead. 

“No no, don’t.” Cad sighs.

He fights it, tries to kick at the ground to inch himself upright, but his feet barely scuff against the earth and he grunts in frustration, letting caduceus guide him back down. 

“It was  _ broken _ fjord. Please—stop that.” He sounds so exasperated, so desperate for him to just listen already. He’d been cut nearly in two only an hour prior, his back shattered and his stomach spilling across the tiles. 

Nature is violent. It’s violent and unfair and  _ angry _ , but never as angry as caduceus when he found Fjord in that state. He could’ve screamed, could’ve hit something, but he only dropped to his knees and cast spare the dying, trying to work with how shaky his hands were. Fjord gives a ragged sigh, falling unconscious again and Caduceus copies it, slipping right onto his side between Fjord and Jesters sleeping forms. 

There’s a moment where he isn’t sure it’s over, that the danger will come and steal everything he has left from his arms, that someone will wake up with a reopened wound, paling in front of him by the moment. But it never comes, and instead, Caduceus is left with the metallic tang in the air and the disgusting cool of adrenaline in his blood. He feels like he might be sick, his body contracting around the empty pit of his stomach and the anxiety that nestles there like a fistful of sewing needles. He’s definitely going to be sick. 

Caduceus sits up slowly, pulling his boney knees to his chest in a way that feels too familiar and yet too misplaced in its own right. He isn’t home, he isn’t safe; and he probably won’t ever be safe again. Was his home even a safe place for him to be? 

Everything hurts. His head, his ribs, his leg, and his heart. It’s like a heavy glass ball has taken its place; cool and solid in his chest, unbeating and will surely be the death of him. At first, he doesn’t even realize he’s crying. It’s when he brings a hand to his face to rub at his temples that he realizes the wetness trailing down his cheeks and the tightness in his sinuses. His eyes flash around the room, across every sleeping body to ensure they really are just asleep. Nott’s curled in Caleb’s limp arms, chest rising and falling and a bit of drool collecting on her chin. 

  
  


“Oh.” Nobody can hear him. It’s okay, it’s alright, he’s allowed this. Just this once.

Caduceus feels that spring of panic twist eternally tighter in his chest and then all at once it snaps:  _ He snaps. _

A sob breaks loose, a wet, disgusting thing that rattles his chest and threatens his lungs. Blood-matted hands fly to his hair and he curls in on himself, knotting sore fingertips against the roots of his hair, pulling, gripping, trying desperately to feel something. He should be able to feel something. He screams, dropping his arm to cover his mouth, the howls into the crook of his elbow, screaming his lungs dry and sore, vocal cords rattling painfully. 

He’s lost. He has to be lost somehow, has to have gone from Her light somehow. How would this be allowed? His heart aches deep, and he drops his arm from against his mouth, instead moving to wrap his arms around himself in a hug. He’s gotten skinnier. How has he possibly gotten  _ skinnier _ ? 

Caduceus feels like a child curled around himself, tears streaking his bloodied face and his bottom lip trembling like new life. 

“Have I gone wrong?” There’s nothing.

“It’s too much,  _ too much.  _ Help me” Nothing, not a single rustle or a wind to dry his wounds.

“I can’t do this, I thought I could-- I  _ can’t  _ do this” His voice breaks, cracks like ice, and he brings a hand to muffle the sob it tumbles into. He could leave right now if he really wanted to. It would be too terribly easy, partially because he has nothing to leave with other than himself. He could trace back, climb from this damned room and return home. Maybe his family will have returned by the time he’d made it home. He misses his family.

His family. 

Cornelius. Constance. Corrin. Coltin. Clarabelle. 

There’s a hand on his back, cool and strong and he chokes on a sob, looking over his shoulder with wide, glossy eyes. Fjord stares back.

His family. 

Cornelius. Constance. Corrin. Coltin. Clarabelle. Fjord. 

There isn't a single word exchanged and there doesn’t need to be. Caduceus didn’t ask about his accent, he just took care of him. Now, Fjord intends on returning the favor, giving him a little nod as he lays back down with a wince. Theres a perfect space there for him, and he fills it, aligning his body with the shape of Fjords, laying a hand gently on Jester’s arm. She’d held him aboard the Balleater, torn him from the edge of a panic he began to think was all he had left. 

She stirs slightly in her sleep, scooting closer to his side so that he is wedged perfectly between them. Fjords hand comes up to wipe his tears and tilt his head to rest in the crook of his shoulder despite how badly it aches. Caduceus goes willingly, blinking away the moisture clinging to his lashes and giving a shuddering sigh as his body finally relaxes. 

He was going to keep them all safe, even if he died trying. 

But until then— he sleeps. 


End file.
